*Professional ship chandelling assumes significance as is strengthening efforts to become a regional maritime hub
Milaha has effectively managed liquidity and continued to invest in future growth opportunities as it seeks to strengthen its ship chandelling services, thus helping vessels operating or calling ports in Qatar to lower the operational costs.
"The continued strong underlying operating performance is part of the group strategy to refocus its activities in core marine and logistics sectors and in that regard, Milaha added a fourth core business pillar, Marine and Technical Services, with a focus on end-to-end service offerings for vessel owners and operators," Milaha chairman Sheikh Jassim bin Hamad bin Jassim Jaber al-Thani on Tuesday told shareholders at the annual general assembly meeting, which approved 30% cash dividends.
Abdulrahman Essa al-Mannai, president and chief executive of Milaha, said it took important first steps towards developing a professional ship chandelling in Qatar with the aim of expanding services to vessels operating or calling ports in Qatar.
This assumes significance given that Qatar is strengthening its efforts to become a regional maritime hub.
"These steps are part of our long-term strategy to develop complete end-to-end services and solutions for vessel owners and operators, to which end we created a dedicated new core pillar, Marine and Technical Services, that includes our ship management, shipyard, ship agencies and ship chandelling and husbandry capabilities," he said.
The integrated services and solutions to be offered locally in Qatar will help the customers achieve greater asset efficiency and lower operational costs, he added.
Ship chandelling, which has become an essential part of the shipping industry, offers a wide range of supplies and equipment that might be required by boats and ships.
Sheikh Jassim said Milaha’s offshore marine pillar expanded its service offerings with new value-add services for the offshore oil and gas sector, including well-intervention and subsea services.
He also said Milaha continued to make progress on divesting underperforming and under-utilised assets, including vessels and equipment, in line with its strategy to drive greater returns through less asset-intensive and more value added services.
Milaha also exited a number of underperforming noncore activities and investments in order to facilitate redeployment of resources towards the core businesses, according to him.
Highlighting that Milaha continued to play an important role in developing and maintaining strong and stable supply chains for Qatar; al-Mannai said during the pandemic, demand for its warehousing and 3PL (third party logistics) capabilities increased "significantly" resulting in increased utilisation at its Milaha Logistics City to over 80% in 2020.
